Hakucho
by Riyo Shiban
Summary: All Rukia wanted was to pick flowers. She didn't want to witness another man's death. Drabble. Second chapter up: Renji's reaction.
1. Picking flowers

A very, very short one-shot from an Idea I got in math class.

* * *

Some days, Rukia just sat alone in the fields of Rokungai. No one was going to attack her. It wasn't even a possibility. For those few souls who had managed to stay out of Ichigo's little invasion, Rukia's incriminating stare would scare them off.

And for those drafted by Ichigo's pure sense of direction and leadership, a trait he didn't even know he had, they would not dare touch anything they had worked so hard to save.

The sun bathed this particular field, that Rukia would so often waist her time it. There where no trees for a square mile, so the birds where scarce. There where only butterflies. This field was one of the only places where you could find butterflies that weren't black. Rukia called this place Hakucho. White Butterfly.

_Clash!_

"Hurry! Hurry! Move!" A voice from the forest was yelling at the top of his lungs. Rukia shifted. This could be bad.

"Help! Hel-!" A scream.

"Aki!"

There was silence for a full five minuets. Rukia started to walk in the direction of the yelling. If anyone was alive... but what if they where shinigami?

'_No'_, Rukia thought, '_they sounded like rouges_.'

But she should still help them. She could always help.

Three corpses lay at the edge of the clearing. This was Rokungai, after all. Someone has to get killed. It was the quota.

The first was a man, middle aged with long hair. The second was a woman, blond, and next to her was a man with short hair. Rukia bent down next to him, and discovered that he wasn't dead, after all.

The man started to gasp, and he soon found his ability to breathe. He looked up at her and said, "Is… she dead-d?"

Rukia looked at the woman next to her. Her head was resting firmly on her hips. Someone had cut her in half!

"She... She is dead." Rukia nodded.

The man made a choking sound in the back of his throat, "I'm going… to die soon. I can f-feel it" His voice was like a whisper.

When Rukia had been training to become a shinigami, she had been trained for things like this. When your comrade is dying, and there really is nothing you can do for him, ease the suffering of death. Talk to him.

"Who was she?" Rukia asked.

"Aki." He said, as if that was the only way to describe it, "W-we where gh-going… to get married..."

Rukia nodded.

"We... where going to... then that b-bastard tired to… st-steal her." The man started coughing up blood, "I-I killed him." A bit of pride shown from him. At least he had avenged her.

Rukia nodded, and put the man's head in her lap.

"I kill-killed him. But... he killed m-me back-k." He continued to cough. He gave one ragged gasp, and was dead.

"Good bye." Rukia smiled, and closed his eyes.

* * *

"So." Renji finished the rest of his paperwork as Rukia walked in, "find any interesting flowers?" Renji often made fun of Rukia's weird flower-picking get-always.

Rukia looked at him, and he noticed the blood smeared on her kimono. Before he could ask a question, she collapsed in tears.

She had never learned the dead man's name, but in her head, he was Kaien.

* * *

**_Review or butterflies will EAT YOU!_**


	2. I can deal with that

Amazing! Suprising! Second chapter! Wow! 73h p0\/\/4h!

**digidestened7**Oh, a Digimon fan. I though you guys where all dead! Well, happy to have you here, and thank you for reviewing!

**Seal-chan:** Thank you! I hope you'll like this chapter just as much!

**Hyourinmaru:** Oh, my... I did not hear about that (seeing as I don't live in Canada) but I'm very sorry it happened. I hope everyone is okay... Or, as okay as they can be...

**Viximon: **Wow, two digimon fans! The dictionary term for 'cannibal' means 'eating one of their own species'. The butterflies I was revering to where eating humans, thus they where not cannibalistic, but carnivorous. Thank you for reviewing. I'm glad you liked the first chapter!

Now, this chapter wasn't planned. I was perfectly happy leaving a few things hanging, but I wanted to write this chapter. If you think that I left anything else unanswered, tell me so, and I'll see if I can write another chapter on it. Thank you, and enjoy.

* * *

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." -**Theodore Roosevelt**

* * *

Renji was angry. It was not a normal, easily spotted anger, but a rare, slow creeping thing. It was ugly, and painful, and no one—save three people—noticed. 

Those three people where Hinamori, Kira and Rukia. They where, to some point, Renji's closest friends. The secondto notice was Hinamori.

She knew, almost right away, that Renji was very angry, but she did nothing. Ever since Aizen had left, she had become precautious and superficial, caring only for Hitsugaya and herself. Unohana said that this was normal for someone who felt very, very betrayed. Aizen had betrayed Hinamori, so she refused to trust, worry about or care for anyone but herself. Unohana said that the fact that Hinamori would care so much for Hitsugaya at this time was, alone, amazing.

Kira caught on quickly, but he was still the last to notice Renji's anger. All of Renji'sconversations where short, curt and often times rude. This was not unlike Renji, but odd enough for Kira to sense a foul. Though he, like Hinamori, did not know _why_ Renji was so angry. Kira, in the end, did nothing because he did not know what to do. He was afraid of further harming the situation.

And Rukia knew right away. She knew the second she had walked into Renji's office, crying and splattered with blood. She knew why he was angry, because she knew Renji.

Renji liked to protect things, and one of the things he was always trying to protect was Rukia. And he had failed when she went into the 13th division. He failed when she got lost in Ichigo's world. He failed when she had come home bloody and tearful, dirt under her fingernails, and would not tell him why.

And in the end, she did nothing because she was ashamed.

* * *

'_She had gone to that Hakucho place.'_ Renji thought, _'Whatever happened _must _have happed there.'_

Rukia had shown him Hakucho. He could find it for himself.

* * *

It was a large field, and just as Renji remembered, it was filled to the brim with these little white butterflies. The butterflies where pretty cool in the first place, being white like paper or snow, but after a while, they got really, _really, _annoying. 

Especially when you had been running around for the last hour, like Renji had. There was, in fact, a large problem with wearing heavy black cloth in the middle of the day. You got really hot, and started to sweat.

It had taken Renji about fifteen minuets to realize that the butterflies where attracted to the salt in Renji's sweat, and they had started to swarm around him, eventually getting stuck to the back of his neck.

This was really, really annoying.

After a while he had jumped into a small river near the forest surrounding Hakucho.

Butterflies-2

Renji-1

Now soaking wet, Renji found what he had been looking for. Actually he tripped over it.

"Ah! Oww! What the-!" Renji stopped when he realized what he had tripped over. Three graves.

He shivered, even though it was a _particularly_ warm day, and stood up. Renji started to apply some of his Shinigami training.

The graves where aligned oddly. Two where very close together, and one was rather far away from the rest, and badly made. This meant whoever dug these graves didn't very much like badly-made (Renji's nickname for the resident of the badly made grave).

One grave was short, thin, and had a sleeve of a woman's kimono sticking out of it. Renji named the resident of this grave Kimono, and he guessed the resident was a woman. The last was the deepest grave (nicknamed 'deep').

The graves had almost no plant life on top of them. This meant the graves where knew, almost freshly dug.

The graves all had little twigs sticking out of them. The twigs where a grave marker or sorts, and had come from a nearby sapling. This meant whoever dug them had been short. _'Short like Rukia.'_ Renji though.

And lastly, the graves where shallow, meaning whoever dug them was of little upper arm strength. Renji sighed, '_Like Rukia.'_

And so Renji knew _who_ dug the graves, but not who was inside of them. And Renji was not about to unearth dead people. So he started to walk. There was a semi-beaten path behind the graves, seemingly cut in a hurry by a sword.

So these people had been in a hurry to get where they where going. Ultimately, being in a hurry to go to their death. Renji nodded. This had been unplanned.

* * *

Rikichi was minding his own business, cleaning the Hell-moth house, when Rukia came over to harass him. 

"Uhh... a very good morning to you, Kuchiki-sama!" Rikichi knew that this girl's older brother would be furious if he did not exhibit such formality.

Rukia only starred at him. For a very long moment, no one said anything. Then, "Treat me," Rukia said, eyes full of confidence, "like you would any other person.".

"Y-yes, Kuchiki-sama." Rikichi went back to cleaning, "Erk- Kuchiki-_san!_" he yelped when he realized Rukia was glaring at him.

"Do you know," Rukia mumbled, "The vice-captain of this division?"

"Ah! Renji-san!" This was Rikichi's favorite subject, "I know him!"

Rukia nodded, "Do you know where he is right now?"

"Um..." Rikichi twirled his broom as he though, "I believe he left, mumbling something about white butterflies..." He shrugged.

"Hakucho?"

Rikichi beamed, glad to help, "Yes! That's what he said!"

And Rukia was gone.

* * *

Tomo had entered soul society when he was a baby. He had died four minuets after birth, but had gained another chance in soul society, the land of the dead. He had been here for twenty years, acted like he was nine, and looked about ten. He had known Aki very well before she had eloped, and had only seen a Shinigami twice. 

Because of this, Tomo did not recognize Renji as a Shinigami when he saw the vice-captain stumbling through the forest behind Tomo's house.

"Hey, mister," said Tomo, "Why're your clothes all wet?"

Renji gave Tomo a look that could have frozen fire.

Tomo was not intimidated, "Why're you wearing black on such a hot day?"

Renji decided to ignore that question, "Do you know anyone here who... disappeared lately?" It was possible no one knew these people where dead, and Renji _was not _going to break that news to them.

"Aki left." Said Tomo.

"Aki...?"

"She fell in love with someone. They where screaming..." Tomo had a short memory, "About something...a week ago."

Renji nodded. Rukia had come back from Hakucho crying about a week ago.

"Thanks." He said.

* * *

Rukia knew a shortcut to Hakucho. It was a beaten path, one of the only two leading to the clearing. One of the paths took you almost directly from The Court of Pure Souls to Hakucho. The other path took you from Hakucho to a remote village in one of the better districts of Inuzuri. 

When Rukia got to Hakucho, Renji was staring at the beginning of the second path. He was standing right next to the graves.

"Did... you make these?" He asked.

Rukia was slow to answer, "yes."

"You don't like him, huh?" Renji pointed to 'badly-made'.

"He killed," Rukia pointed to the other two graves, "them."

"Why're they so close together?"

"They where married, I believe." Rukia sighed.

"You dug three graves in less than two hours." Renji was slightly horrified by this fact.

"Y-yeah." She nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me this happened?" Renji asked, finaly turning to look at her, "Why didn't you tell _anyone_?"

"I was ashamed." Rukia sat down, "And confused... and I was _going _to," She gestured to the graves, "tell you today, but you found out."

"You waited a week."

"I was pretty shaken up."

"Okay." Renji nodded, "I can deal with that."

* * *

I consider this an extra scene. It's a whole three pages longer than the first chapter, and turned out so much better! I'm so happy! I don't know, it wasn't supposed to be a Renji/Rukia fic... I didn't write it with that in mind, but if you want to think that, please do. I'd love people to be able to think of different things from the fics I write. I would love that... 

_**IF YOU REVIEW, RENJI WILL WORRY FOR NO APPARENT REASON.**_

Renji: ...I really wish you would stop putting me in the review threats...


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